Radeon HD 4850 2GB vs Radeon R9 M295X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 M295X, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 750 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 1375 MHz on this particular model. It features 2048 SPUs along with 128 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4850 2GB		110 Watts
Radeon R9 M295X		125 Watts
	Difference: 15 Watts (14%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 M295X should be a lot faster than the Radeon HD 4850 2GB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 M295X		176000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4850 2GB		63552 MB/sec
	Difference: 112448 (177%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M295X should be much (approximately 284%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4850 2GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M295X		96000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 2GB		25000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 71000 (284%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 M295X is much (about 140%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4850 2GB, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon R9 M295X		24000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 2GB		10000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 14000 (140%)

Please note that the above 'benchmarks' are all just theoretical - the results were calculated based on the card's specifications, and real-world performance may (and probably will) vary at least a bit.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.